🍎apples🍏 are one of my main autumnal markers, and we have a whole ritual centered around the humble malus tree. first, there's the visit to a local orchard to pick and fill a bushel basket with as many varieties as possible. i usually eat so many apples off the tree during our visit that i make my stomach hurt 😝 then, we bring our bounty home and carefully wash them. i love setting them out on tea towels on the kitchen table to dry, a sea of apples. the work is ready to begin. a couple hours spent peeling and coring the apples (a $20 peeler one of the best investments i ever made), separating the flesh from the skins and cores, which are deposited in our big ceramic crock. the scraps make a fine vinegar and the flesh is destined for apple butter. making the butter is a full day tradition that involves music and dancing around while i wait the 4+ hours it takes to cook down 30 lbs of apples. canning is my favorite part because it's rewarding to jar up all that hard work and end up with all these gifts for family and friends. i get my vinegar started too while the butter cooks, topping off the scraps with sugar water and my mother of vinegar saved from last year. it's not all fun and games, the kitchen gets hot and it's tedious testing the butter over and over for doneness, but man i love this process and look forward to it every year! .
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#homesteader #homesteadersofinstagram #homesteading #apples #applebitter #kitchenwitch #gardening
extremely fitting that garlic be the first thing we plant in our new garden 🌱 my favorite plant, my ancestral plant, and honestly our home's sacred plant. we use garlic every single day - as both food and medicine. it's easy and fun to grow, overwintering and emerging in early spring lil lime green shoots. i said i wasn't gonna plant anything this fall, but i couldn't resist. i planted a full bed with about 100 cloves of garlic, and another bed with some greens and root veggies. the other four beds will be cover cropped with an awesome raised bed mix i bought at @sowtrueseed . it's finally feeling autumnal here, and it was nice to spend a morning planting some hardy crops. this evening it will rain and help germinate all those seeds, and i'll be inside, baking muffins, sewing, and drinking tea. .
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#gardening #homesteading #homesteadlife #garlic #garden #growyourownfood
i guess i see most thing i do in my life as a practice of craft. carpentry, gardening, homesteading, cooking, herbalism, even running - these are all crafts and the sky is the limit in terms of personal growth within each. quilting is perhaps my most 'traditional' craft and one of my favorites to practice. sitting at my machine, standing at the ironing board - these are meditative times for me, quiet alone time that i desperately need. and then the best part, piecing, watching the quilt come together and feeling like i'm birthing something incredible into this world, the ultimate creative act! i really try to live all aspects of my life as craft with these thoughts in mind. every single thing is an opportunity to bring something amazing into this world, or to destroy something to make way for the new. also, attention to detail in all tasks, treating all tasks as craft, helps me improve my skills. and being present in the moment (the hardest) allows everything to be an opportunity for meditation, joy, even the sacred. .
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been working on this quilt for 9+ months, stoked to see it coming together. it's made entirely with upcycled denim from thrift stores, which marks a big shift in my fiber arts practice - away from purchasing resource intensive cotton to using reclaimed materials and dyeing them myself with plants. i love the texture of this quilt, which you can see better in the second pic. .
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i'm starting a new job monday, and hoping to infuse it with all these life as craft thoughts. really, really excited, as this feels like officially planting myself here in the asheville area . :
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#quilting #fiberart #fiberwitch #sewist #sewistsofinstagram #quiltersofinstagram #quilt #homesteading #homesteadersofinstagram #simpleliving #craft #traditionalcraft #folkcraft #folkart
made time for a date with myself in the woods today. went for a long run, happened upon a huge patch of goldenrod, picked a few plumes to bring home. after running, i collected spicebush berries because they are abundant right now! a nice morning in the woods led into a lovely afternoon of kitchen witchin, inspired by becky over at @bloodandspicebush 💚🌿🌻 i stripped a bunch of the goldenrod flowers to dry for tea and used the rest to start an infused vinegar with my own homemade apple cider vinegar. to top it off, i made honey cornmeal muffins and threw in a handful of goldenrod for good measure. yummm. spicebush berries are in the fridge, waiting for to be infused in brandy. eventually we will use that extract in a mead we're cooking up. some days i'm down and depressed, but somedays i just love my life and feel so lucky to live here among these mountains with my babe in our amazing house that we're slowly transforming into a homestead. and i deeply know and try my best to honor that i owe a lot of that joy to the plants, to these woods and streams and all the amazing beings that live within. the hawks screaming and snakes suntanning and even the gnats that stick to my sweaty body when i run. if i could remind myself one thing every single day, it's GET OUTSIDE. observe nature, even for just ten minutes. for me it makes this life worthwhile 😁
